The incredible journey of Comet Lovejoy into the solar corona of our Sun on December 15, 2011 revealed astonishing details to scientists that could not have been gleaned from sending spacecraft into the same region of the Sun’s atmosphere. Telescope images from this time revealed how Lovejoy’s tail “wiggled” in response to the strong magnetic field surrounding the Sun, which had previously not been observed – or observable.

“The comet goes through an area of the solar atmosphere that we can’t really observe…